Our Evidence of Harm documentary update – (December 2014) can best be described as “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”… “but obstacles are overcome through perseverance and determination”.

The past few months have been quite challenging as we attempted to overcome some major stumbling blocks on several fronts. I’m happy to report that almost all of the issues have been resolved and we are moving full steam ahead. What were once roadblocks have developed into even better opportunities than we could have hoped for.

Documentary Audio

I have been stuck in a gridlock as the audio engineer could not get our timeline to open correctly into his audio workstation. Kudos to Noel of Substream Music as he tried everything imaginable to get this to work. Unfortunately, the best we ever achieved was 500+ missing audio files (out of the 2,500+ on my timeline). Luckily, Noel was able to hand us off to CJ Drumeller of Follow Happy Productions. Thus far we’ve had no problems opening up my timeline and his experience is specifically with mixing feature length films. Additionally, he just invested into audio plugins that will enable him to clean up our noisy dialog. He will be giving us two mixes, one for the theater and one for the DVD.

Translations and Close Captioning

The workflow I figured out for the crowd sourced close captioned (CC) translations of our film continues to work brilliantly. Many thanks to our Facebook friends across the globe we are going to be able to offer close to 15 additional languages that the film will be captioned in when released online.

Evidence of Harm Website(s)

My websites were continually getting hacked, forcing my service provider to take my website offline and at one point they even deleted my account with all my content. After throwing a fit, they restored my content from the backup system. I have now moved the website to a different Content Management System CMS (WordPress). Thus far I’ve had no issues with being hacked and I’ve found the website much easier to update. Bubblehousedesigns.com is now taking care of our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so that we can obtain a high ranking in the various search engines.

Evidence of Harm at Documentary Film Festivals

I wish I could say there was a silver lining to this aspect but as of yet getting accepted to festivals remains elusive. Both Sundance and Palm Springs film festivals turned us down. As I mentioned in my last update, I’ve submitted to about 20 festivals, several of which we know programmers at (which increases our chances considerably). I’m confident we will get accepted to several festivals, but at this point which ones are anyone’s guess.

Color Correction for Evidence of Harm

I now have all the proper equipment in to allow me to do the color correction of the film. With all the hassles surrounding all the aspects that were previously not working, I can not focus my time on this.

Animation

In the film is an animation suggesting what Boyd’s NBMI product does. This was something I found on the internet and unfortunately I have not been able to secure the rights to use this animation (the artist is a skeptic of our cause). So about 5 months ago I put in motion to have a new animation created by one of my long time collaborators. Unfortunately troubles have sidelined him and he has been unable to work on it. So we tapped Justin Sirois of “ON THE Z” who can complete it for us. He is giving us a great deal considering how much medical animations usually cost. He has been working on it and should have it completely done in time for our test screening in January.

Evidence of Harm Test Screening

I will host a local showing of the film in January that will do several things… it allows us to hear the audio mix and see the color correction in a true theater setting. This showing will also allow me to test out the Digital Cinema File that I would need for festivals through out the country who use digital projectors. Several years ago, it cost upward of $10k to have these files created. I purchased software that will enable me to do this myself. My fingers are crossed that it will work as promised.

While all of these aspects have needed constant babysitting and guidance to get them on the road to being completed properly, the end is in sight !

The Road Forward

Many people have asked, “when is the film going to be released” ? I’m finally at the point where I can start offering specifics on this. We have entered close to 20 film festivals in 2015 that run through April. Whether we get accepted into them or not is yet to be foreseen. Since festivals do not want to show films that are available online, we must wait until the film festival run is over before releasing the film into online distribution outlets. Additionally, I’m looking at trying to raise funds for a week long theater run in NY and LA, that would include a publicist securing reviews for the film in some of the major newspapers. If I can make this happen at would probably take place in May, with the film being widely available in June of 2015.